Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Here's the kids in this year's costumes.

Ron Weasley (not Harry Potter--don't you see the hair???)

Hermione Granger

Watch out for the wizards!

Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore (Sarah with her friend Haile)

Swim

Sarah's life right now consists mostly of school and swimming. She is enjoying swim. We have been able to watch her swim at a few meets and snapped a few pictures. Most are from a meet in Scottsdale over Fall Break.

Swimming freestyle at her first home meet courtesy of the team photographer.
(Me timed this event and so wasn't able to get photos.)

Pictures from Scottsdale:

Ready to start the meet with the backstroke leg of the 200 Medley Relay. (She swam a 50 yard backstroke.)

A couple photos of her swimming backstroke.

Diving in for the 500 yard freestyle. This is a long race (20 laps) and the swimmers have people who help them by counting laps for them. Me timed her splits and, with the exception of the first lap which was a few seconds faster, each lap took her about the same amount of time (within 1-2 seconds). Her coach was impressed with how consistently she swam, saying that it's unusual for a freshman to show such consistency. Go Sarah!

Swimming those laps! When she finished, she said she wasn't even that tired.

Waiting to swim her leg of the 400 Freestyle relay.

Diving in as soon as the previous swimmer finishes.

Look at her go!

In case you are wondering why Sarah swam in the events she did, here's a little background. In meets, swimmers can swim in up to 4 events, either 3 relays and 1 individual event or 2 relays and 2 individual events. The coaches determine in advance who is swimming in each event/relay. Sarah typically swims in 2 relays and 2 individual events. However, at the Scottsdale meet, she swam in 2 relays (200 Medley swimming backstroke and 400 Freestyle Relay) and 1 individual event (the 500 yard freestyle). She'd also been scheduled to swim the 50 freestyle but the coach decided at the last minute to have her skip the 50 freestyle since it occurs right before the 500 freestyle.

Other Happenings

We had fall break the first couple weeks in October. Normally, we take a trip somewhere but this year Sarah needed to be here for swim so we stuck around home. Last time we did that was 2011! It was nice to hang out around the house and do a few things with friends. The kids helped at the food bank each week, which was something they looked forward to and enjoyed. We went bowling, had a video game day and a movie day, played with friends, slept in the tent (Megan and Matthew slept there for six nights, the rest of us less), went swimming and read a lot. (Megan and Matthew have started reading the Harry Potter series so there is a lot to read!)

We watched some family videos over the break. Megan said, "I want to video tape the video!"

One item we did on our live list was "Cleaning Day" (Matthew's idea). Megan disappeared for part of it and we found her reading her latest Harry Potter book. She explained, "I'm cleaning all the words in this book with my eyes."

One of the many creations built over break.

It's fun to sleep in the tent.

Sarah carried in all the groceries!

Matthew rediscovered his booster seat.

Shaved ice from Bahama Bucks.

While U went to Mexico for his brother Seth's marriage to Ana and Sarah was at a swim meet, Megan, Matthew and Me went to Bounce A Rama which had bouncers from all over the world.

Matthew and Megan climbing up the Great Wall.

Megan sliding down.

Matthew sliding down.

Climbing the Sphinx and then sliding down.

Paris!

Making their way into the Coliseum.

A sign of approval. Megan and Matthew both enjoyed running around, bouncing and sliding. Towards the end of our time there, they decided to play hide and seek with Me always being the seeker. The catch? Me couldn't go in the bouncers so had to just spot them. Then she had to count while they ran off to hide again. It was a never-ending game.

We got dinner at Culvers.

Megan and Matthew designed Harry Potter pumpkins for school.

With their finished pumpkins.

Sarah's swim team had a fun intersquad meet where they did all sorts of crazy races.

Here she is swimming the corkscrew where she takes one stroke on her back, turns to her front, takes one stroke on her front, turns to her back and repeats this for the entire race.

Leg kick only race.

Swim team photo

Matthew's Art Masterpiece painting of an island. His has a very large, active volcano.

Megan's painting of an island with a smaller, active volcano.

Megan was student of the week in her class the week of her birthday. This is the poster she made all by herself.

Matthew was student of the week the last week in October. We forgot about his poster until Monday morning and so it was a team effort to get it together before school.

The temple one morning when U and Me went to do sealings.

Dad (to Matthew): Are you and Megan both having pancakes for snack?
Matthew: No, just me. I don't want the maple syrup to mix with my applesauce.